


Big Brothers

by leaves_girl



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 13:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leaves_girl/pseuds/leaves_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guinevere could be a hero, if she weren't a little sister.</p>
<p>Written for the Kink Meme prompt, "For once, not Merlin, not Arthur, not Lancelot or Gwaine or anyone but BAMF!Gwen saves the day."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Brothers

_She hears the cries, the source too far to reach, as she peers through the darkness around her, assessing the situation. She sheaths her weapon for long enough to tie her hair up and put on the thick forge-gloves that she had luckily thought to bring. She looks around again, in front of and behind her, but then shakes her head, knowing no one will come. “You’re on your own, Guin,” she whispers._  

 

When Guinevere was four, she saw a bug drowning in the pail behind the house. Its little legs were twitching frantically, and its wings just lay there, water-logged and limp. Her heart full of pity, she reached for the poor creature with her chubby hand.

“Guinny, no!” cried Elyan. “Here, let me do it.” He used a leaf to scoop the yellow-and-black bug free and sat with her as its wings dried in the sun. “We don’t touch bees, Guinny,” he told her firmly.

_She picks her machete back up. Elyan helped her make it. Of all the strange ideas he got on his travels, this is her favorite. It was easy to make, and is a genuine joy to use._  

 

 

When Guinevere was eight, she saw a baby bird fall from the roof. One scraggly wing waved forlornly, and the demanding mouth opened widely with hungry chirrups. Her heart full of compassion, she immediately retrieved a spade to start digging for worms.

“What’re you up to, Guinny?” Elyan asked as he rounded the corner. She proudly explained. “Wow, that’s great, Guinny! Except, we’re going to need to mash those up before we give them to him. Here, let me. And then I’ll need to take him to Gaius; his wing’s probably broken from the fall. While I’m doing that, why don’t you think of a name for him?”

 

_She takes one final deep breath, knowing she’ll need it, and with a vicious grin, she begins._  

 

When Guinevere was thirteen, she saw her first beggar, in the corner of the market. People in the lower town were rarely wealthy, but there was always enough to get by. This girl’s mother had been killed for sorcery, though, so everyone was afraid to buy from her, sell to her, or take her in. Her dirty hands formed an empty cup, and her eyes were tired. Guinevere’s heart filled with sympathy and shame, and she reached into the bag of apples she had purchased, an idea forming.

“Here, miss, take these turnips,” Elyan coaxed. “I know it’s not much, sorry. And…Sorry.” Smiling, Guinevere leaned down to offer her apples as well. “Guin, love, you can’t. We have to bring something home for dinner. That’s my sister,” he explained to the beggar girl, “kindest soul you’ll ever meet.”

 

 The story of her life can be boiled down to this: Guinevere always has an older brother **.**

  
  


When Guinevere was twenty-one, she saw the prince bullying a servant in the courtyard below her. His Highness was laughing with his lackeys while he forced the servant to hobble around. Guinevere had the window open to beat the rug, so she could probably yell down to the prince that Morgana was looking for him. Her lady would understand, and the servant would be safe.

Then the target rolled to a stop under a boy’s boot, and the words “You’ve had your fun, my friend” carried up to the window.

_With a cry, she brings the full force of her machete against one limb, and then another._  

 

 

She could have helped with the druid boy, really. She wouldn’t have worn a bright red cloak, at least, which from later retellings seemed to be where Morgana’s plan had gone astray. Instead, she had been shooed from the room as soon as her lady could tactfully manage it. She understood Morgana’s point, of course; if it had been Guinevere arrested for harboring a sorcerer, she’d be dead instead of scolded. Still…

 

_“I am not a liability,” she yells._

 

Guinevere was hiding behind a wooden screen watching her lady start a magical fire when the thought hit her: she had grown used to waiting. She was so sure that someone would burst in and fix things that she had completely stopped trying to fix things by herself. A day later, Arthur had come back from that quest, Merlin and Gwaine in tow. They had probably saved the day. It took Guinevere too long to sort out her thoughts. She never did get a chance to confront Morgana.

 

_“I can fight. I can use a sword,” she tells herself and whoever might hear._  

 

The problem with having an older brother like Elyan, she reasoned, was that she never had a chance to be the hero. Sometimes he was trying to protect her. Sometimes he knew more about what to do. Sometimes he just got the jump on her.

 

_“I’ve fought a foreign king’s soldiers. I’ve faced down bandits more than once.” She narrowly avoids a scrape to the cheek, a reminder of the consequences of ignoring her surroundings._  

 

When Elyan had left, Morgana had taken his place, fighting her battles and keeping her safe. Soon Merlin and Arthur joined the ranks, and where one brother had been occasionally frustrating, three defeated her entirely. They would tell her if they needed her help, she reasoned, and occasionally they did.

 

_“I smuggled an antidote out of a jail cell. I shoved the prince out of the way of a very heavy gargoyle. I poisoned a goblin.”_

 

 Morgana in particular had cosseted her, which was ironic considering what she thought of watchers. She’d made her point: anyone who will placidly watch while sorcerers burn and then when knights are executed, deserves to be shot by immortal archers. One should stop evil when one sees it, or be reviled with the perpetrators.

 

  _“I don’t need to be protected!” she screams. “I don’t need to be left behind in a CAVE while everyone else - including bloody GAIUS - goes off to die!“_  

 

With Elyan back, and Lancelot, and with Arthur practically ordering Gwaine and Sir Leon and Sir Percival to be just as protective, Guinevere worried that she might end up useless forevermore.

 

_Giving up all subtlety, she switches to a simpler hacking motion. “I” thwack “AM” snap “NOT” thwack “A” thwack “FRAGILE” thwack “FREAKING” crash “FLOWER!”_  

_The cries have stopped long ago, the creature frightened by her vehemence, but as she picks up the sack, she hears a cautious squeak. Her smile becomes something softer as she re-sheathes her machete. “Hey there, little one,” she coaxes, and eventually the kitten’s nose sticks out curiously._   _Catching her breath, she turns to survey the path behind her. It was good, if hasty, work. She probably won’t need her machete on the way back out._  

 

 She eventually decided that the only way she would ever get to be the hero was if she made the opportunity herself. Elyan had always been a heavy sleeper. She would sneak out into the dark and see where the night took her.  

 

_The knights, the prince, and Merlin would worry if they knew she was sneaking around like this, but it’s hard to save anyone, or to stand up for herself, when there are so many older brothers there to do it for you. Now and then, she wants to be the hero instead of the damsel. Rescuing a kitten from a briar patch might not be much, but, combined with the maiming of two bandits the night before, it’s a start._


End file.
